The weekend stats are out, and on its fourth weekend Legend of Tarzan has done a thoroughly respectable $6.43M, bringing its domestic total to $115.8M and Global Total to $261.5M. It now seems almost certain LOT will crack $130M domestically.

The weekend:

$1.830M — Friday
$2.630M — Saturday$1.970 — Sunday
$6.430 — Total

The focus now really shifts to foreign. The foreign total above does not include China, which has not been officially reported yet but will add another $30M, plus the Japan opening is not until July 30th.

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Yet – aren’t the Box Office Mojo numbers only for the theater runs? If so, John Carter seems to have earned about 284 million lifetime crosses. With the way Tarzan has been doing so far it seems to be likely to get close to twice John Carter numbers domestically, and you’d think it should have pretty good chance of getting fairly close to twice what John Carter lifetime crosses were worldwide too, and John Carter did get 73 domestic and 211 foreign.

Poh, it’s confusing, but here’s how it shakes out. JC opened at 30M and ended at 72M domestically. LOT opened at 38.5M and will end at $130M++ domestically. So far so good. LOT is almost twice JC domestically, theatrically. But JC (“biggest flop in the history of Hollywood” so they say) made $211M foreign. LOT is currently at $145M foreign and on a same-territory basis is lagging behind JC by 20% or more. (You can go to Box Offie Mojo, look up each film, click on “foreign”, and see how each did in specific territories). So, unless LOT’s legs in foreign are stronger than expected — or unless Japan comes through huge … It’s looking like LOT’s foreign will be less than JC’s, or maybe equal to it. So let’s say it’s equal — 211M. Add that to best case domestic of $140M — and we get to 350M. That gets us within “hailing distance” of 400M, which is the presumed “sequel trigger” point ….but it’s not quite there and it’s starting to look like 350M is a best case projection. It may end up more around 320M. (Please don’t blame me or feel I’m being negative. I’m wringing my hands and fretting and hoping and urging and rooting and sweating . . . . . but the numbers are the numbers.)

Now …. as for the numbers being “only for theater runs” — yes, that’s true. But this “2x budget = profitable” doesn’t mean that it’s profitable as soon as it does 2x budget. It will still be far from recouping its costs at that point. But if it gets to 2x budget in theatrical, then (so the logic of the “2x” theory goes) this kind of a performance in theatrical only means that when you take into account all the income streams over time, it will become profitable.

But also keep this in mind. The sequel doesn’t automatically have to cost as much as the first film. What we are seeing is a box office result that will probably justify a sequel at $120M, not $180M. That will be part of any discussions about a sequel. Can it be done for that? We’ll see.

Are we sure China box office numbers aren’t included? Box office mojo site has some foreign countries listed with their respective results, but the number they give for foreign far exceeds what is shown on the list for the countries. Would be nice if they would update and expand the foreign chart to current countries and current numbers, then we would know.

According to Variety, LOT has ‘floundered’ domestically and now has a 185 million production budget:
“The Legend of Tarzan” swung to the top of foreign box office charts over the weekend, propelled by a solid opening in China. The adventure epic led competitors with $44.7 million from 17,500 screens in 61 markets. The big contributor was the Middle Kingdom, where “The Legend of Tarzan” picked up $27.1 million in its first six days of release.

The attempt to relaunch Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp novels about a man raised by apes has floundered domestically, weighed down by its $185 million price tag. The film’s global total now stands at $260.5 million. That’s a respectable gross, but a film of this size needs to do upwards of $400 million to be considered a success, let alone trigger a sequel, which is basically the point of greenlighting a movie with that kind of budget. Warner Bros. is backing the film, which was directed by David Yates, the filmmaker behind most of the Harry Potter movies. It stars Alexander Skarsgård as Tarzan and Margot Robbie as Jane.http://variety.com/2016/film/box-office/legend-of-tarzan-foreign-box-office-1201821861/

Brent Lang, who wrote the above article, seems to have it in for LOT today:
In some cases, these markets are enough to compensate for weak domestic performances. Films like “Warcraft,” “Ice Age: Collision Course” and last summer’s “Terminator: Genisys” have turned a profit or at the very least been rescued from steep write-downs because they’ve played well overseas. Others, such as “Ghostbusters,” remain question marks — the ongoing viability of their franchises remain in question until foreign returns start to trickle in. And, an unhappy few, the “Legend of Tarzans” and “Alice Through the Looking Glasses” of the world, couldn’t find salvation regardless of what time zone they ventured into…http://variety.com/2016/film/box-office/star-trek-beyond-box-office-2-1201821821/

Found more info on a site Deadline.com “int’l Box Office Sunday” July 24, has int’l cume as $145.7 million including China six day total of $27.1 , it holds second place there at box office. Brazil $3.3 m open, at #1; Spain $1.8 million also opened number 1 there. Has Top Five overseas markets as : Mexico, $11.8 , UK $10.5 , Russia $8.2, France $8, Australia $7.8, all millions. It notes that it opens in Germany July 28 and Japan on 30th, so I assume these are major markets. I am hoping it can eventually get to $300 million ww gross which I think would be ?breakeven or better and a triumph considering the negative press and headwinds it faced.

Deadline, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Box Office Mojo all get the same figures from the studios and their reporting of gross to date is usually the same. They differ when, for example, on Friday they project the weekend totals after the first day. But usually by Sunday they are all in synch.

Box Office Mojo frequently has a different foreign total than what you get when you add up everything in foreign. That’s ecause they don’t like to provide a country by country breakdown when they don’ tyet have good info for a country …. but then the include their estimate of that country in the aggregate total.

$300M won’t get it done as far as a sequel is concerned. I really think the trigger point for serious chances of a sequel is $400m, although I suppose a lower total might work if someone could credibly figure out how to make a sequel for something like $120M.

Ps, a friend and I were talking about other recent movies we’ve seen that seemed somewhat similar. She reminded me of Finest Hours and In the Heart of the Sea, both period adventures with young male leads Chris Pine and Chris Helmsworth respectively. Looked up info for them and found Finest Hours reported budget was $70-80 million, ww gross $52.1 million. Heart of Sea budget $100 million, ww gross $94 million. So in comparison, LOT was a big winner.

I was surprised at the lack of merchandising for this movie (sound familiar?). Surely with the good WoM that has kept it going in domestic theaters there would be some of that for a sequel, which would also help with profitability….

I think it is getting to the end of its domestic run. My usual theater ,as of today, only has 3 showings a day and 0 3D but I checked on it and was pleasantly surprised to see the theater nearly full. We went to Star Trek and it was very good, but leaving theater over heard an older couple saying “last week Tarzan was better. “. Don’t tell any Trekkies that lol

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